


You and Me

by miztrezboo



Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-09
Updated: 2011-03-11
Packaged: 2018-09-13 09:37:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9118072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miztrezboo/pseuds/miztrezboo
Summary: A tale of two who were, and weren't, and are.





	1. You and Me

**Author's Note:**

> Written for FANDOM GIVES BACK for my pal kiyaraven

" _Loving you is easy, losing you is hard. But knowing you were once mine is the hardest. "_

 

 

"Don't forget to let the cat out."

And there it was, my cue to leave; the signal that I'd stayed my welcome, and if I hesitated a minute longer in his bed it would be well and truly _overstayed._

"I won't."

 

**#8#**

I rolled out of his bed and started looking for my clothes, ignoring the warm wetness coating my thighs. I didn't bother to turn around and see if he was watching. I knew he wouldn't be. I heard the familiar sound of a match being lit (he liked the smell when he shook out the flame). I could almost picture the swirl of white leaving his nostrils in a loud burst, circling and winding its way through the air above him.

My panties were hanging off his high school football trophy, and I almost laughed because he'd been aiming for the drawers. Apparently, his ability to aim a ball anywhere on the field didn't extend to lingerie and his room. I didn't bother to put them on, I'd only be taking them off again in twenty minutes once I got home and could finally shower off the grime and guilt that coming here left me with.

 

**#8#**

God, he was heavy, but I relished the weight of his body on top of mine. It wasn't often he let himself go completely like this- that he touched me in a way that wasn't to entice me to his side. I left my hands where they lay, my fists still clenched in the sheets so tight I didn't think I'd be able to force them to unfurl. My knees still pressed against his ribs, the heels of my feet resting on the cheeks of his ass where seconds ago they'd been digging in, urging him for more.

His breath played in short, sharp bursts over the sensitive skin of my neck where he'd been nipping and licking so hard I was sure he'd leave a mark. He liked to lay claim, even though he would never say the words, and I never told him I wanted to hear them.

I liked the stain to my skin. I hated when the red and purple faded to gold and then disappeared.

I liked to remember that at one time, he wanted me. Me.

I wanted him to pull me with him when he rolled onto his side. I wanted his arm to wrap around my waist and hold me close and to feel his lips upon my forehead before we sunk into slumber. My fingers twitched and almost as if he had felt the movement, the warmth of his body was gone.

I squeezed my eyes tight over the sting of his actions and forced myself to sit up.

"Don't for-"

"The cat, I know."

 

**#8#**

He was laughing at her stupid jokes and I sipped on my rum and coke and watched. His eyes didn't once stray to me. Yet I knew by the set of his shoulders that I would be the one going home with him tonight.

 

**#8#**

"This isn't good for you, Bella."

I unrolled the last curler from my hair and tipped my head over to shake my hair out.

"I know you can hear me, I just… don't you see what he's doing to you?"

I stopped fluffing for one moment and watched the toes of her left shoe tap in front of me before they turned with a frustrated huff and left the room.

She never understood. She could never understand in high school, she never understood in those moments we were both home from college and she could never understand now.

Then again, it wasn't as if I did either.

 

**#8#**

****incoming text message****

_My place, twenty._

I was knocking on his front door in ten.

 

**#8#**

He groaned and his fingers combed through my hair, gathering the ends into his hand and twisting almost painfully. His cock tasted so good on my tongue, all musk and man and _him._ In and out and deep and swallow. My nose tickled by the dark auburn curls that surrounded the base of him as I relaxed my throat. One finger teasing the sensitive patch of skin sitting behind his sack before circling the little pucker that I knew would have him shooting his load well before he wanted to if I were to insert it up to a knuckle.

I pulled back until just the head sat on my tongue. His closed eyes struggled to open and he gazed down at me, his lips quivering with every shaky breath in and out. His look was as pleading as was every whimper that unwillingly left his chest. I smiled and licked around his foreskin before sinking down once more.

I swear I heard him whisper thank you as I wiped away the little that had spilled onto my chin.

 

**#8#**

Another night, another blonde. More insipid laughter followed by more not-so-innocent touching. Green eyes flashing at me with what most would see as anger, but I knew to be a more baser instinct than that.

It was always different when the shoe was on the other foot.

Later, he bent me over someone's beat up Ford in the car park and pounded into me without a word.

 

**#8#**

"You know I've never even seen cat food or a kitty litter tray for your cat?"

"He eats rats and he shits outdoors."

His laughter wraps warmly around me as I pull on my jeans.

 

**#8#**

"Do you remember Mike's party?"

I stumbled, knocking my ankle on his coffee table from where I'd been trying to take my sandal off. We didn't talk, not after the kissing had begun and his fingers slid none too casually under my skirt. He'd never been one for small talk. We never talked about our past. "Which one? Mike was always throwing parties."

"The one where you brought Jacob Black."

I froze, my shoe clattering to the floor as I'd finally released the clasp. Swallowing the shock, I found my voice to answer. "Oh."

"You remember?"

I nodded and forced myself upright. My body yearned to turn around and see his expression. To see if there was _anything_ there, like there had been the night I'd brought an extra to Mike's Big Start of Summer Send Off. Otherwise known as 'my parents are away on holiday somewhere out of state and think I'm trustworthy because I go to church with them every Sunday' bash.

Somehow, I managed to stare at the crack in his wall instead. It had been bugging me since he first invited me back here-how had it happened? Did he throw something ? Or was it there before he moved in?

"Bella," he said my name tersely, and I imagined him squeezing the sound out through clenched teeth. He was upset with me and I didn't know why.

He was the one that brought up Jacob. Not me.

I nodded because I wasn't sure how to respond or what exactly he wanted me to respond with. I hadn't spoken to Jacob since that night. Not after I'd driven him to hospital, a broken, bleeding mess and had his sister scream at me for an hour over what a teasing slut I was. That I should have known better than to pull her brother into our games. That I deserved the reputation that the Cullen boy had given me. That I was never to set foot on their property again.

I'd seen Jacob Black a few months back, he'd been on the street with his wife and daughter, a picture perfect scene that I'd glimpsed waiting for the light to turn green. Ten years later, and I could still see the scars from where Jacob's jaw had been wired closed.

 

**#8#**

_Don't stop, don't stop…. Oh god, so close!_

He winked at me- the bastard licked his lips, then winked at me before slipping between my thighs once more.

 

**#8#**

I'd been at the bar for three hours, and Ben kept looking at me and looking up at the clock on the wall. I knew that clock well. I knew the minute hand vibrated as it slowly made its way around, making ten minutes feel like ten hours. I knew that the neon lights above it said BE R because Sam Uley had thrown a wild dart and smashed the other E. I knew the number nine was upside down and probably had been since the clock was put on the wall. The hand was hovering over the six that should have been a nine. He had said six. He told me six and now he was punishing me and I was taking it by waiting so long.

Why he was punishing me was something for which I still had no real answer. Maybe it was because I'd ignored his texts twice this week before caving and driving over. Maybe it was because I'd actually gone out on a date yesterday and hadn't come at his beck and call. Maybe it was because I'd seen his car hovering in the shadows when my date had walked me to my door. Or maybe it was because I'd purposely pulled Alistair's collar close and kissed him before letting him come inside.

"Are you just about finished, Bella? I'd kind of like to close up."

"She'll have a rum and coke, with a cherry."

"Without the cherry."

" _With_ the cherry. Has she shown you what her tongue can do with the stem?"

"Shut up, Cullen."

Ben sighed and rolled his eyes before turning to get the bottle. My whole side burned like I was leaning too close to a flame, the heat I had been waiting for. I listened to the screech of wood on wood, the light rustle of his clothes as he sat down and then felt the rough of whiskers as his lips met my cheek.

"Maybe we should go without the cherry, and you can just practice on my dick instead."

"It's about the same size," I said, turning my head toward him, letting my eyelids close as I breathed in the clean, fresh scent of his aftershave and soap.

"I've never heard you complain before." He swallowed so hard afterward I saw a vein popping in his neck as his Adam's apple bobbed up and down.

"You never let me talk."

"Oh, you talk well enough. Most of it isn't that decipherable."

I laughed and felt his hand like a brand upon my knee, shifting slowly up under the loose ruffles of my skirt until his thumb was between my thighs, attempting to push them apart.

"Come home with me, and let's see how many words you can get out that aren't 'yes,' 'more' and 'don't stop.'"

He tilted his head so his eyes met mine, and I was lost in the darkness of his stare. There was humor and lust and still something more. It was the something that I usually only saw when a hand that was male and not his was touching my skin. The tip of my nose brushed his as I breathed in and he breathed out.

We were gone before the ice even got to the glass.

 

**#8#**

**** You've reached the voicemail of… Edward Cullen… please leave a message after the…****

I didn't know why I bothered listening to it all the way through. I never left a message, it was sick the way I needed to hear his voice.

**** You've reached the voicemail of… Edward Cullen… please leave a message after the…****

 

**#8#**

"Don't forget-"

"I've never fucking forgotten to let your fucking cat out _once,_ you fuck."

"Language, Bella, language. Words like that and you sound just like-"

"Don't you dare bring my-"

"Oh that's right, we can't mention Mommy now-"

"Shut up, Cullen. Just shut the fuck up."

Slamming a door closed had never felt so good.

 

**#8#**

I could see it on her face. Alice was deliriously happy that I hadn't seen him in three weeks; Friday would be four. I didn't miss him.

I didn't.

My eyes found hers in the mirror where she was bouncing, almost vibrating with happiness on my bed.

I smiled and rolled my eyes as I squinted to apply more eye shadow. There _should_ have been butterflies wearing steel-capped boots practicing for Riverdance in my stomach, but there was nothing. Not a flitter. I was calm and collected, not worried at all about tonight.

A date.

A date with a nice guy, who would probably take me to a nice restaurant and we'd have nice conversation followed by a nice kiss on the cheek when he dropped me off at home.

It would be nice.

Normal.

Yet in my heart, I knew it wasn't what I wanted.

 

**#8#**

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Climbing – _ahhh fuck!_ –in your… your window."

"Will you keep your voice down?"

"I will when I – _sweet Jesus, my balls_ – when, when I'm inside. Will you shift over?"

"No, I don't want you here. I don't want you in my window."

"Move over, Bella, and let me in. I can't balance half in half out for much longer."

"No. Go home, Edward. Go home."

 

**#8#**

****incoming text****

_Please._

 

**#8#**

I woke up from the most vivid dream, a dream so real I actually sat bolt upright, gazing at the space where I expected him to be. I pulled my legs up to my chest and rested my chin on my knees. The moon was full tonight and I was hoping that was why my brain decided to fill my head with memories I'd hoped I'd forgotten.

Pale light flickered through the sheer curtains as they shifted in the breeze, and I blinked and saw his body curled in the window seat there. That summer it had been so hot he'd always ended up sleeping under the window, usually leaving my bed moments after we'd finished making love. He'd found a way to fold his long body on the small cushioned area and light up, even back then. I remembered the way the smoke swirled in circles above his head, making him look ethereal. Untouchable. Unreal.

Yet he had been back then that he'd been real to me.

We'd begun dating in sophomore year. He-the golden boy of our high school-and me- the town whore's daughter. I thought it was a joke when he'd asked me out. He'd never noticed me before and I read books at the home games that Alice dragged me to just because she was a cheerleader.

The second time he asked me out, I laughed in his face.

The third he didn't even ask, he just sat down at the booth where I'd been nibbling around a salad while finishing a book report I had due the next day. We didn't speak, he just ate his cheeseburger and fries and when we were done eating, he asked me questions that had made me think.

He obviously had more than the winning arm and Hollywood smile that I'd previously only thought him to be. He sat with me every afternoon at the diner. We'd eat together, then discuss classes that we both had (more than I had thought). I helped him with English and he helped me with Math. It wasn't until winter break approached that I realized what I had thought was some sort of communal tutoring, he'd actually thought were dates.

I'd quickly informed him that if he wanted to date me, he'd need to pick me up from my house and meet my father first. It wasn't like he had to meet my mother. If you wanted to see Renee all you had to do was take a slow drive down Main Avenue any time after ten on a weeknight. She'd treat you real nice if you had enough Benjamins in your pocket.

He took me home that afternoon and met my father at the door. He'd even 'stated his intentions', which had my Dad's moustache twitching. We'd been inseparable after that.

He made it to the varsity team and became captain our junior year, and after the team won the homecoming game, I lost my virginity to him in the back of his mom's car. That summer was supposed to be everything for us, but it was the summer that broke us both.

 

**#8#**

****You have… Twenty Six new messages…** _Bella, please just_ _**…** _ **You have no new messages****

 

**#8#**

"I'm really worried. She hasn't come out of her room for days. I can't even get her to look at me when I go in. She's never been like this, and I know she's not seeing him so… I don't know. I don't know what to do at all."

 

**#8#**

I got up and stood in the shower. I didn't know why I'd chosen to 'wake up' today. I did know when I nicked myself shaving my legs I watched the blood pour down my ankle and swirl around the drain. I did let myself cry until my throat was hoarse and there were no more tears.

I got dressed and I sat at the window that for so long had been his, and I looked out into the town that had been all I'd known for most of my life.

Fall had come, the leaves turning and leaving a feeling of change in the air - maybe more than just the seasons.

 

**#8#**

I threw away my old cell phone and bought a new one.

Little steps.

 

**#8#**

I left work with my arms full. I could barely see over the flowers that Alice had sent today and the box was heavy, full of books that I'd acquired over the years. I'd never realized how much stuff I'd filled my office with until I had to clean it out. It was time for a new start. A new job, a new town, a new state.

A new me.

A me without the weight of what could have been holding me down. A me free of knowing eyes following my every move. A me without ghosts hovering around every corner.

A me without him or anything that reminded me of him.

It was what I needed, what would be good for me. Because Edward Cullen and I were toxic. We weren't meant to be. We were a could-have-been and I knew, even though he'd never leave my heart, we were better off without each other.

"Wait!"

I ignored him, even though my foot skipped a little out of step with the other as I continued walking to my car.

"Bella!"

My hands shook as I shifted the box to my hip and tried to get my key in the door.

"Please!"

I was tempted to just dump the box and run. Books could be replaced. The flowers would die in a few days anyway.

His hands smacked into the window so hard it shook and I jumped, hitting my knees on the steering wheel. I closed my eyes and let my hand rest on the key that would start the car and get me out of there.

"Please," he said again and it was soft and his tone was full of hurt. I recognized the feeling. He'd made me feel it too many times before.

I didn't unlock the doors. I didn't even turn to look at him. I did lower the window.

"You were going to leave and not tell me?"

I said nothing. As many, many times that I'd thought about what I'd say, imagined how I'd go to his house and find him and say all the things I've wanted to since he'd broken my heart and my trust that summer before our senior year.

That summer I learned that he didn't see me as anything more than a way to get his rocks off. I'd been just the stupid girl he fucked three ways from Sunday while he 'dated' Angela, the pastor's daughter. That was what the public saw, I was nothing better than a mistress and even Angela knew he was fucking me while going to church with her. I was the laughing stock of school and I was too blinded by what I'd _thought_ was love to see.

I'd brought Jacob to that party to make him jealous. I'd wanted him to see that I could have anyone. I could be wanted, I could be cherished, I could be adored. I didn't talk to him until we both came back after our first semester of college. He'd gone away to play for Seattle and I'd started my scholarship at Brown.

I told myself I didn't need him. I told myself he didn't own my heart.

But one look, one more apology and I'd been his like we'd never been apart.

It had been different after that. I'd convinced myself it could just be sex. That I could fuck him and he could fuck me and we would never need anything else. I'd dated. So had he.

"Bella, were you really just going to leave and not even say goodbye?"

I realized he was still standing there, still waiting for me to reply. I took a deep breath, turned and committed the face I'd seen so many, many emotions cross to memory. I would never forget him, but I just couldn't be around him anymore.

It was unhealthy. For both of us.

"I can't do this anymore. I can't."

That little line appeared in the middle of his brow and he licked those lips that I'd kissed and felt on my body too many times to count. His hand tentatively reached inside the car and his fingers folded over mine where they shook on the steering wheel. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry about bringing your mom into this. I know how much she hurt you and how much you never wanted to be like her and you're not. You never have been." He paused and his fingers shook over mine. "And I'm really, truly sorry if I've ever made you feel like you were her. "

He looked at me and my eyes shone with unshed tears. His lip trembled and he swallowed again and again as the silence ate into the space between us. Just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore, he whispered my name, his forehead pressed against mine and we breathed.

I was so close to saying I wouldn't go. I was so close to saying _it's okay, we can try again._ I was so close to getting out of that car and never letting go.

Then I remembered how sick I'd felt every time I'd seen him kiss another girl's cheek. I remembered how my heart leaped up in my throat every time my phone rang, thinking it would be him, but wasn't and then I'd be hollow. I remembered how he'd never held me. Never touched me, just because he could. How we'd never gone out to dinner. How we'd never even held hands.

I remembered his dismissal every morning and having to let out his damn cat.

"Goodbye, Edward."

His hand squeezed over mine and I felt hot, fat tears roll down my cheeks. His lips wiped them away and then pressed, slow and sweet, on my forehead. I started the engine and he tapped the roof twice before stepping back as I reversed the car out. When I looked in my rearview mirror, expecting to see his familiar shape, the body I knew better than even my own, it was gone. He was gone, which was just as well. Now he could stay a memory of what I'd had, what I'd wanted and what I didn't want anymore.

 

 

" _Loving you is easy, losing you is hard. But knowing you were once mine is the hardest. "_


	2. Me and You

" _This estranged organ in my chest still beats for you, it will not rest."_

 

 

_"Goodbye, Edward."_

The words were the sound of the heart I hadn't thought I had breaking apart.

_"Goodbye, Edward."_

And like that, she was gone.

**#8#**

A knock on the windscreen startled me out of a sleep I hadn't realized I'd fallen into. I blinked and tried to focus my eyes, still blurred and itchy from exhaustion.

"Son?"

A familiar yet, different umber stare from a life-worn face gazed in at me through the dew-covered window. His mustache twitched.

"Son, I think it'd be best if you moved along. Two weeks of sitting here ain't helping anyone."

Two weeks? It felt like two years.

I blinked and sorted through the jumble of reasons and words I wanted and needed to say. Before I had struck upon one to use, the click of his tongue against white teeth-too perfect to be real-stopped me.

"She's moved on, kid. So should you."

**#8#**

"Stop calling here. I'm not going to tell you anything, Edward."

I was getting far too used to her slamming down the phone.

**#8#**

"This is excessive even for you, Cullen."

I shrugged and placed a bottle of Jack on top of the case of beer I'd already lugged onto the counter.

"Did I hear that your girl left-"

I cut him off with the hard slap of my hand, filled with money I couldn't afford to spend, onto the cracked wooden surface.

"Keep the change."

**#8#**

The world was spinning. The world was spinning and it shouldn't have been a _bad_ thing because I hadn't _felt_ anything in so long. I didn't want to feel. Not when the last time I'd actually _felt_ , it had only been a part of me breaking that I hadn't known still worked.

I let my hand drop to the side of the couch, feeling my way over empty cans and bottles that jostled together noisily until I found one that echoed a sloshing sound when I shook it.

I swallowed and swallowed, ignoring the way some of it dribbled down my jaw and pooled in the hollow of my throat. There was no burn, no satisfying warmth when the liquid hit my stomach. There was nothing; I was nothing.

**#8#**

It was the coldest winter on record for fifty years, yet it still felt warm to me.

**#8#**

I heard her. I didn't know when it started, but it did; she became the whisper of a chill that curled around my body. Her laugh-something far too loud for someone her size-echoed from the kitchen. Her soft sigh when I'd said something obtuse (which was far too often). Her deep, hoarse moans when I'd touched her just right.

I saw her everywhere and nowhere. I saw her when my eyes were closed. I saw her when they were open, gritty and aching.

I saw her walking from my bedroom to the front door. I saw her stumbling because she'd just been fucked seven ways from Sunday and her balance was off. I saw her wiping a tear from her cheek because I'd been a bigger ass than usual. I saw her fuming, hands clenched into tight fists because I'd opened my mouth one too many times about things that should have been left in the past.

A past we shared. A present we'd had. A future we had no longer.

I got up and cleaned.

**#8#**

_So close, so close!_

My hand shifted up and down my aching dick, my eyes squeezed tight and I could almost pretend that she was above me and meeting me thrust for thrust. I could feel her warm breath on my neck, on that place she knew made me groan. I could hear her stilted sighs and the grunts she'd refused to acknowledge she made in the bedroom.

When I came, I didn't feel anything but sticky and hot. There was no perfect release for me. Not when I was lost in this hell hole.

**#8#**

"What makes you think you'd be good for this position?"

I stared a beat too long and his brow lifted just the tiniest bit. He was thinking he was better than me. He was thinking that the hit I took in college -a too-high tackle that caused swelling in my brain and eventually left me with short term memory loss - meant that I was simple and didn't understand.

It was fucking flipping burgers.

My stare turned into something malevolent and the metal chair fell to the floor just a shade quieter than the bang of the hurriedly slammed door.

"Hey, Cullen. Long time no see-"

I glared at him too, paid for my vodka and left.

**#8#**

It was a good/bad day.

Good: in my drunken haze I smelled her on my skin. She was tangerine and chocolate.

Bad: the fruit had since gone sour and the flavor was bittersweet.

**#8#**

****Outgoing Text****

_I think the cat misses you._

**#8#**

"You're a fucking drunk."

…

"Will you take a look at yourself, Edward? You're wasting your fucking life and all of this over what? That girl?"  
…

"Look, the only reason I came was because Mom was worried. Mrs. Cope has been looking after your cat because she thought you had died in here, Edward. The town's fucking cat lady thought _you_ were dead."

…

"You're a selfish son of a bitch. No wonder she finally grew some _cahones_ and left your sorry ass. You treated Bella like sh-"

"Get the fuck out."

"It speaks!"

"Leave. Leave now, Emmett, or I swear to you-"

"You swear _what_ , little brother? You coul–-I see your aim is still shit. That bottle missed me by a country mile."

"GET. OUT."

**#8#**

I ran my hand over my face, my jaw nearly indistinguishable under the layers of growth that covered my cheek. I forced my eyelids to open, ignoring the way the orange glow of a dawn or dusk felt like someone was shining a small torch into my skull. I didn't wonder what day it was. I didn't even care about what season it was anymore.

All I knew was that everything I touched turned to shit. Nothing was worth fighting for.

**#8#**

I ate. I drank. I passed into unconsciousness. I woke. I drank. I filled my body with the least amount of fuel it needed. I fell into darkness once more.

**#8#**

There was a hollow in my chest that I couldn't ignore. It pulsed with every breath I took. It ached even as I slumbered. It burned when I walked into my room just to find clean clothes before returning to the couch. There were too many echoes of her and us in that room.

One particularly lucid night (I'd run out of mind-numbing liquids and it was too late to buy more) I curled myself up in the sheets where we'd lain; the bed that had been more than just a place for push and pull and moan. I'd watched her come apart with me. I'd watched her walls crumble as she'd fallen in too deep. I'd watched her indifference turn to like and then to something that I'd thought we'd lost when we'd been much younger. I'd watched everything change between us and I'd let her believe she was the only one who'd felt it.

I deserved to be alone.

And she deserved more.

**#8#**

I'd grown to despise the cat and his need to be let out in the morning. I put in a cat door.

**#8#**

The house smelled of bleach and that weird shit they used to hide the scent of vomit in high school. My nostrils burned as I breathed in, but it was satisfying.

_I will try this time_.

_I will_.

**#8#**

"And you believe you'd be a great addition to our team, why?"

"I'm good with numbers. And it'd finally put my finance degree to good use."

"The pay's not that great. In fact, it's shit, but my Dad always thought you would have gone professional if it hadn't been for that hit. I'm sure he'd be tickled pink to know we had _the_ Edward Cullen working here."

I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat and shook the dickwad's hand, smiling like I was supposed to.

I walked past the liquor store that afternoon.

**#8#**

I sat at the bar and sipped my coke. Ben had been good to me tonight, not asking questions, not being chatty, pretty much just leaving me alone. It was fairly early on a Sunday, so the place was quiet.

Then Jacob Black walked in the front door.

I remembered to call in sick by Friday, but it was too late. I didn't have a job anymore.

**#8#**

**** Outgoing Text****

_Why did you have to fucking go?_

**#8#**

"Is he awake yet?"

"The doctor said he should be coming around soon."

"I don't know if I can do this again, Emmett. My heart-"

"I know, Mom. I know. If he doesn't get his shit together after this, I may just kill him myself. Finish the job he's apparently doing half-assed, just like he's done with everything else in his sorry life."

I concentrated on the beep of the machines and felt much better drugs pull me back into the abyss, like the warm embrace of an old friend.

I didn't belong here anymore.

**#8#**

Apparently, I'd totalled my car.

Apparently, I'd been lucky no one else had been out at that time of night.

Apparently, I'd nearly given my mother a heart attack.

Apparently, they'd had trouble waking me out of the anaesthesia and they'd had been worried I wouldn't come back to the living at all.

Apparently, Alice had come to see me.

Apparently, she'd asked if I was alive. _She._

I told myself this was the last time, that I'd never touch another drop.

I'd do it this time. For me.

**#8#**

"Edward, would you like to share at this time?"

I fixed him with a steel-eyed gaze until he cleared his throat uncomfortably and moved on.

I didn't want to be here. Not for the judge who'd taken away my license for being well over the legal limit. Not for my mother who'd threatened to disown me if I didn't come to my senses and at least _try_ to live my life instead of throwing it all away. Not for my brother who'd told me he'd have nothing to do with me if I didn't clean myself up this time-a warning that I would have taken seriously if they hadn't been the same words he'd used when I'd first left college and found myself a friend in booze.

Not for me.

And definitely not for her.

**#8#**

My phone was ringing and I was ignoring it.

I ignored it today like I had done every day since I'd hung up on some reporter vying for a story on the 'downfall of _the_ Edward Cullen.'

When I found my cell a few days later to order out for pizza, I noticed that all the calls had been from one number.

An unknown.

**#8#**

I begged Alice for her information. I pleaded with her to at least tell me where she was. The Mustache escorted me off the premises.

At least he might tell her I still cared. It had only been six long months.

**#8#**

Mrs. Cope looked at me with pity when I asked her to keep my cat.

**#8#**

I found myself sitting at our table in the diner more often than I should have. I found myself ordering the food we'd ordered back then, and yet I mostly pushed it all around. I just sat and stared out the window and wondered how I'd let it all go so wrong.

"You know she loved you." A voice aged with time and the help of endless cigarettes breaks into the past I find myself lost in. I sighed.

"She did, you know. And you loved her. I could tell back then and I can still tell now."

"It doesn't matter," I choked out. My throat was suddenly too tight, bands around my chest were squeezing and my eyes stung. The room felt far too small.

Her laughter was wet and filled with scorn. "It always matters, kid. It always does."

She left me alone with a slice of cherry pie, just like she always had when I'd eaten there more often than I'd eaten at home. The clink and clatter of plates and cutlery didn't stop me from tossing around her words. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was true back then, until the day all my lies unraveled and I broke the flimsy hold I'd had on all my secrets. Angela had laughed in my face when I'd apologized. She'd known all along. She'd thought it was fine, letting me 'sow my seeds' because I would come back to her. We were perfect, she'd said. She could 'let me' have my fun, as long as it stopped when we were married.

I'd turned and run.

I'd seen Angela around a few times. Her husband (a poor henpecked and slightly bowed man) always followed two steps behind her. She still smiled the same saccharine grin.

**#8#**

"Anything to share tod-"

"No."

**#8#**

I stood on the corner-under the same tree that I'd waited for her to sneak out after her curfew-and watched her window. The curtains were the same. The paint was peeling a little and I wondered for a moment why the Chief hadn't had anyone come around and fix it for him, like he used to do every summer.

I leaned back against the bark, enjoying the familiar feel of its roughness through my thin shirt. I remembered how great her ass looked in jeans as she'd shimmed her way down the drainpipe to the ground, and then to me. I lived for the moment she landed. She'd turn around, her dark hair tied back into its usual ponytail and she'd smile _my_ smile, looking up at me through impossibly long lashes. She'd run the few steps to my side and I'd sweep her bangs behind her ears, just so I could see her eyes better.

I ran my fingers over my lips, the skin tingling with shadows of first kisses that had long turned cold.

The front door creaked as it always had and he nodded his head at me while taking out the garbage.

No words were spoken, but I felt as though I was forgiven for something I hadn't yet apologized for.

**#8#**

The vodka was on special. The bourbon wasn't too badly priced either. There was even a two-for-one on the rum that she'd preferred.

It took all my strength to turn around and walk back to my house. The trip was made even longer knowing that it was those exact thoughts that had left me without vehicular transport.

I'd never wanted a drink so much.

**#8#**

"Hi, my name is Edward and I'm an alcoholic. This is my 56th day sober and this is my first time speak…"

**#8#**

The way I came upon my job was strange.

I hadn't really worked much before, content to live off the inheritance a long-dead father had left me. I'd never thought much about my future, considering I hadn't really figured I'd have much of one at all. When football had been taken away from me, I'd completed my studies, but that had only been to keep on my mom's good side. When I'd moved back to town, it had been easy to find somewhere cheap to rent. It had been easy to fall back into habits that had worked so well during my teenage years.

Then I'd found out she was back in town, working at the same school where things had started for us, and it had felt right. Complete. Like all the pieces of the puzzle I'd lost myself staring at were suddenly shifting into place.

I'd thought I'd had it all. I'd thought I'd had my good times. I'd had a girl.

My girl.

Then a new ache in my chest and twist in my gut made me rethink it all. She'd let guys touch her at the bar. _Our bar._ She'd go home with them and I'd make sure to mark her the next time she was under me. I'd refused to believe it was jealousy. She'd never said anything when I'd kissed other girls, but I'd noticed how she'd be a little more aggressive slamming my door.

She hadn't known that I'd never taken any of them home either.

It had always been her.

My home, my bed, me.

Always hers.

Only hers.

When I pulled myself out from under my new Chevy I'd been working on, I was honestly surprised to see the Chief standing there. He'd asked me if I was busy. I licked my lips far too often to be normal. I'd never had a talk with her dad before. Sure we'd _talked_ , but I wasn't sure a 'hello,' and 'I'll have her home by ten' really counted as anything more than polite conversation.

He wanted to know if I was any good at painting. The siding on his house really needed to be done. I asked why he didn't want a professional. His mustache twitched.

"Do you want the job or not?"

It took me two weeks to get one side of the small house done. He never said if he was happy with my job, but he did leave a pot of coffee for me every morning. When I was done with the painting, he left me a note about redoing the deck before the rain came in the fall.

It was about then he started bringing me dinner.

He didn't look at me when I asked him why. Why dinner? Why the job? Why me?

"You just loved her wrong."

**#8#**

****Outgoing Text****

_I know you don't get these. But it helps. It helps._

**#8#**

The reception I got when I walked into Black's store was confusing. I never expected his smile (albeit stiff). I never expected his hand or mine to shake. I never expected the apology to tumble from my lips, only to be stopped by a shake of his head.

"We were kids. We were stupid kids and I should have known better."

"But I-"

"You've said what you needed to say, Cullen. Let's leave well enough alone."

A few weeks later he drove past me as I stood waiting for the bus, his nod was more acceptance than I could have asked for.

**#8#**

My mother called and wished me a Merry Christmas. I hadn't even realized it was that time of year. She told me Emmett would come around and pick me up for dinner. That he and Rose had something to tell me that I'd want to hear.

I figured out their news on my own.

I saw her face when she'd thought we'd fucked up. I saw her face crumple when I'd had said nothing but a 'thank god' when it turned out she'd been wrong.

Just another moment to add to the list of ways I'd fucked us over. I had to wonder why it had taken her so long to let me go.

**#8#**

"You treated her like shit, you know. You made her cry more times than I care to count and I hate you. I hate you for making her feel like she had to leave here to get you out of her head. I hate that you pushed away my best friend and I'll never forgive you for that, Cullen."

At least she opened the door to scream at me this time.

**#8#**

Chief had me fixing the tap in the kitchen one particularly cold winter's morning. I knew it was something he could have done himself, but I didn't question why he asked until I saw the yellow legal pad with an address in Arizona underlined twice, lying on the counter.

For a week I did nothing.

**#8#**

"I'm sorry."

…

"I know it doesn't mean much. I know it's just a word, but I truly mean it, Mom. I'm sorry that I've put you through so much, not just in the past year but for so long before that. I know I've said and done things that have not only hurt you, but hurt our family and I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

…

"I don't expect your forgiveness, I just wanted you to know that I realize how my behavior has extended beyond hurting myself. I just-"

She hugged me so hard I swear I heard a bone crack.

**#8#**

****Outgoing Text****

_I'm coming, Bella. I'm coming._

**#8#**

She looked the same, but different.

A year could do a lot of things to a person.

Change a lot. Yet a lot stayed the same.

I hadn't felt this nervous since the day I'd sat down across from her at the diner when she'd been just a pretty sophomore and I'd been little more than the class clown.

On the drive here, I'd thought over and over about what I wanted to say. The words I could use. The way I would lay it all out. But now, standing only steps from her, I had nothing.

Her hair looked curlier, shinier even. It was glossy and fells in waves down her back. She had this red coat on that made the brown stand out all the more. She was laughing, putting her hand on his forearm as if she needed help to stand. My gut wrenched the same way – if not more – lit had back when I'd seen her pull a similar move at our bar. He was laughing too, this average looking guywith dirty blond curls. He was bumping her with his shoulder, and the way he stared at her… I didn't like it.

The old me with his anger issues would already have crossed the parking lot by now and would have had this guy out cold on the ground, a mix of his and my own blood spattering my shirt and fist. The old me would have whipped her away to somewhere half-private before taking her and taking her and making sure she knew that it was me and me alone that should make her smile like that. The old me would have ignored her eyes turning glassy with tears before shutting down completely and letting me do my worst. The old me would have gone home and punched a hole in the wall.

Fuck, I'd been such an asshole.

The new me took three deep breaths and waited for her to turn and notice me where I stood. The new me smiled when I saw her own grin drop for just a second before she turned to her companion and waved him off. The new me had to swallow down a swirl of emotions as I watched her hips sway side to side when she walked. The new me had shaking hands that I jammed into the pockets of my jacket when she stopped, leaving significant space between us.

"How did you find me?" she asked and I stared and stared at her, because she was more beautiful than memory had allowed.

The silence between us grew and filled like a balloon and I shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot as her gaze deepened from shock to something else. Something I didn't want to name because then it would be real and I would have to stop pretending that she might be happy to see me.

"I asked you a question."

I shook myself and swallowed hard before I answered. "Your dad, I've been working at your old house and he-"

"Charlie… of course," she muttered, her gaze breaking mine as her hand hovered over her purse, presumably where her phone was, with thoughts of the tongue-lashing she would be giving to her father after this.

"Bella-"

"Don't."

"I'm sorry."

She stared at me and I couldn't figure out what the look on her face was. I knew I'd said the words to her before. I'd thought they might have stopped her from leaving me, but I hadn't meant them as much as I did now.

Because now I knew how hard it was for her to go. I knew what it felt like to have lost her when I'd never realized I'd had her at all.

"Why are you here, Edward?" she asked with a sigh and crossed her arms over her chest. There was a small sharp breeze from behind her; the scent of tangerines and chocolate was heavy in the air. I swayed from the smell alone. It reminded me all too much of my hallucinations of her, back when I'd been too drunk to discern what was real and what was not.

Maybe I'd never understood that concept too well.

"I needed... I wanted… I just..."

Jesus, it was so hard. It shouldn't have to be this hard.

"I love you. I came to tell you I love you and that I know the way I treated you was wrong. I know what we had was wrong in so many ways, but in among the lies and the hurt-because I know I hurt you, and you hurt me too–-but in all of that, there was love, Bella. There was _something_. And I want that, I want that with you."

Her eyes were glassy and she was fiddling with a loose thread on the cuff of her coat. She hadn't said a word and that balloon of uncomfortable from before felt ready to pop.

"I don't, I don't know what else to say. I just... I needed to tell you that I'm sorry and that I've changed, and although it probably means nothing to you–I love you. I'll always love you and I just, I guess I thought you should know."

In my head, there was a constant running stream of taunts and I berated myself for how stupid I had been to think that anything could come of seeing her. That saying any of these words to her would mean anything.

"Oh."

She said one word, or it could have been a sigh. Just one little sound left her mouth, her lips reddened from the gale that was starting to build around us. It whipped her hair around her head, making the strands look almost violent as they lashed the cream of her skin. My fingers twitched to ease them from her eyes, and without realizing I had done it, I was there, touching the silken mess and her cheek… my thumb ran over the peach soft skin as my fingers slid further into her hair.

"You hurt me so much, Edward."

"I know."

"One apology or a thousand won't help that."

I nodded.

"And you can say you've changed all you want, but I'd have to-"

"See it. I know."

"You can't just expect me to-"

"I don't expect anything."

She was blinking fast and I took it as a good sign that she hadn't told me to leave. Yet.

"You look the same."

I risked a smile that she returned. "You do too, the same but different."

"It's the hair, it's longer."

I nodded. "I noticed."

"I can't believe you're here."

She moved, or I moved-somehow we were closer and I could see the gold that had always been sparkling among the warmth of her brown eyes. I could see the pink of her tongue flash out across her plump bottom lip.

Her hands were on my chest, burning through the thick winter wool and then all I knew was that I was kissing her and she was kissing me back. I tasted her breath and I was lost. Lost to the past, to our present and to a future I wasn't sure we'd have, but I had faith that this kiss meant a chance at something more.

" _This estranged organ in my chest still beats for you, it will not rest."_


End file.
